The Political Party That Cried Scandal

The IRS targeting scandal and the Associated Press phone records probe have both raised significant and legitimate questions about the trustworthiness of the Federal government. The officials in the IRS’s Cincinnati office that overly scrutinized the tax-exempt status applications of Tea Party organizations injected petty partisanship into a process that is supposed to be politically neutral. Similarly, the Department of Justice overstepped their authority and trampled on press freedoms when they secretly seized nearly two months of AP phone records as part of a national security leak investigation. Even if the Obama administration had no direct, prior knowledge about either of these breaches of trust, the twin scandals reflect negatively on the President’s internal management skills. Questions should be asked, hearings should be held, and, most importantly, the public should be outraged at the conduct of their public servants.

However, the public has displayed only a passing interest in these two stories. A recent Gallup poll indicated that only 54% of Americans are “very” or “somewhat” interested in the IRS targeting scandal, while 46% say that are barely following it, or not following it at all. Even less attention has been directed towards the AP phone records probe. And President Obama’s approval rating remained unchanged, even after a supposedly hellish week for him.

It may seem odd that these troubling reports have fallen on deaf ears. But this generally blasé national reaction is really the product of nearly five years of Republican conspiracy mongering. Ever since President Obama became a political and cultural force during his 2008 Presidential campaign, the Republican Party has done everything in their power to delegitimize him and his “big government” ideology. Month after month and year after year, top party officials hurled baseless accusations at Obama and his allies that were at best misleading and at worst slanderous. Now, with real scandals emerging, the GOP will find itself unable to politically capitalize on them, because Americans are already fatigued from listening to their faux, hyped up scandal stories. It’s an amusing irony.

It all began in 2008, when allies of Senator John McCain accused Obama of being an anti-American, closeted Muslim extremist. Although McCain himself quickly condemned those accusations, the more brazen and shameless members of the conservative nexus continued to harp on that moot point for years. In 2010, opponents of Obama’s proposed healthcare plan said that it was an unconstitutional piece of legislation that promoted socialism and the destruction of the free market system. In 2011, the gaudy showman Donald Trump led a failed endeavor to prove that Obama was born in Kenya. And finally, in 2012, congressional Republicans attempted to hold Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directly accountable for the deaths of four American diplomats during a terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

All of those supposed “scandals” have proven to be either exaggerations or outright fabrications. The Supreme Court found the President’s healthcare plan to be constitutional in 2012, and his Christian American roots have been thoroughly displayed and documented. Benghazi, while tragic, was not a scandal. It was a series of unfortunate miscommunications between various government agencies and officials, and the blame cannot solely be placed on Obama and Clinton. Most reasonable Americans have realized this, but that has not stopped Republicans from hyping Benghazi as “the biggest political scandal in American history”, an opinion that 55% of staunch conservatives currently hold.

The GOP’s concerted effort to discredit and defame the President can no longer be disguised as a patriotic campaign to eliminate crime and corruption from the White House. Darrell Issa’s claims that the Benghazi hearings aren’t politically motivated and that Hillary Clinton isn’t being singled out are just absurd at this point. Donald Trump and his “birthers” have been properly marginalized and ridiculed. And many of “Obamacare’s” key provisions are now well received by the general public. Like the boy who cried wolf, the Republicans have cried “scandal!” one too many times, and now, with the metaphorical wolf wandering the halls of the IRS and the DOJ, no one is bothering to listen to them.

This isn’t poetic justice. This isn’t even a small political victory for Democrats to revel in. This is yet another example of how proper governance has been replaced by partisan warfare. The callous games that the Republicans have been playing for the last few years have numbed people’s ability to determine when their government is doing things that are illegal or immoral. Many people now automatically assume that mountains are always made of molehills, and that corruption allegations are just dirty tricks to advance the agenda of a particular party or group. The IRS targeting scandal and the AP phone records probe are actually serious, and people should pay attention to them. But thanks to Republican obstructionism, nobody is listening.

Some may say this is the GOP’s chickens coming home to roost. I say it’s just a sad mess of smoke and mirrors gone awry.